


Life Is A Trip Down The Road That Leads You

by Miss_Alignment



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, also lots of cats, but it's mostly silliness re: cats, lots of fluff, there is a teeny bit of sadness at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4737881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Alignment/pseuds/Miss_Alignment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Remus doesn't like living alone. The thing is, Sirius ends up disappearing off to help James for six weeks because James has the self control of a six year old. The thing is, six weeks is a long time and Remus gets lonely.</p><p> </p><p>Or: Five cats that adopt Remus Lupin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Is A Trip Down The Road That Leads You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'When Can I See You Again' by Owl City, because googling song lyrics is my default when I can't think of a title.
> 
> Shout out to the fucking stunning [dear_monday](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday), who is a) in possession of thighs of steel, and b) willing to read two and a half thousand words of cat related silliness and then patiently tell me all the times I managed to litter typos through said silliness.
> 
> If you're curious enough to care, this is set in a nebulous time post-Hogwarts but before everything got shit.

 

 

The thing is, Remus doesn't like living alone. The thing is, Sirius ends up disappearing off to help James for six weeks because James has the self control of a six year old. The thing is, six weeks is a long time and Remus gets lonely.

 

 

 

Mildred is first. He finds her after popping out to the shops for an emergency packet of bacon and a bar of Cadbury's. While he doesn't notice the cardboard box on the way there, he nearly trips over it on the way back. There's one kitten left, sitting dead centre of the box and looking right at him. She's still mostly a kitten, a tortoiseshell and white with pretty green eyes, and even sitting down it's obvious she's mostly leg and tail. Remus would like to say he weighed the pros and cons of a pet, but in all honesty, he'd been on his own all week and it isn't even a decision so much as instinct to drop the bag from the off-licence and crouch down in front of her.

Mildred - then unnamed - hops up and puts both her front paws on one of his knees, and he's scooped her up into his arms before he can blink.

Once he's got her inside and made her a basic bed out of blankets at one end of the couch, he shuts her in the living room and goes straight back out to get some cat food (especially for), a little box, a cat bed and a plain blue collar (not too fancy, because she'll grow out of it soon). They had cats at home, his parents, and it's oddly thrilling to impulse buy her a scratching post and a toy.

 

  

 

Eleanor is second. He finds her about a week after Mildred, one morning when he stumbles downstairs in search of tea. Mildred - who is normally a very polite cat, especially for her age, and fairly good at respecting food preparation areas - is sitting on the counter next to the kettle, and batting at the window. When he goes to scoop her off and away from the kettle - nobody needs a burned nose at seven in the morning on a Tuesday - he sees not her reflection in the window , but a slim black cat batting back at Milly through the window.

Remus stands there for a few minutes, his thoughts of tea completely derailed, then shrugs his shoulders and heads outside. The black cat turns towards him when he comes to stand next to it, and mews up at him. A swift peek under her tail reassures him that this is not a dastardly tom come to corrupt Milly, who is entirely too young for that sort of thing, but another young female. And, well, raising kittens alone is actually very poor on their socialisation and they tend to be more self-assured when raised with company.

After a trip round to the vets to check for a muggle microchip and a notice in the post office window that goes unanswered for three days, Remus christens her Eleanor and resigns himself to needing more cat litter.

 

 

 

Kathleen is third, and he's honestly not sure how she got in. He leaves the sitting room one afternoon to get a cup of tea, and when he gets back, there's an enormous grey mound of fluff sitting in his spot on the couch. The mound of fluff has haughty blue eyes and small white ears, and seems thoroughly unimpressed by Mildred and Eleanor playing on the hearth rug. (To be fair, Remus is also a little unnerved by the playing on the hearth rug. Even though he's got a repelling charm over the fireplace, he's still terrified one of them is going to end up setting herself on fire with a misjudged leap).

The mound of fluff turns out to be only slightly smaller than a Labrador and is thoroughly unwilling to be detached from the couch. The vet, on the other hand, is thoroughly amused by Remus turning up for the third time in a month with a new cat, though admittedly the scratches up his arm are new. Unlike Milly and Ella, Kathleen (as he has already started calling her, oh dear) is excellently groomed and in prefect health. Her microchip scans and reveals her given name to be Fluffy (and no wonder she's so grumpy), and the vet bustles off to phone the owners and ask them to pick up their wayward kitty.

Remus, therefore, had already started planning on what to cook for dinner when the vet reappears looking awkward and mumbles something about the owners not wanting Fluffy back since Fluffy isn't suited to children and gosh, golly, it seems like Fluffy needs a new home. Remus looks down, and Fluffy looks up, and he decides that Kathleen suits her much better anyway. Then the vet says something else about the owners offering him the rest of Kathleen's food and sundry belongings, and what's the difference between two cats and three, anyway?

So Kathleen comes home and reinstates herself on the sofa, and that seems to be that.

 

 

 

Prudence is fourth, and she is entirely Mrs. Whitely's fault. Mrs. Whitely lives at number twenty three, while Remus, Mildred, Eleanor, Kathleen and (sometimes) Sirius live at number twenty one. She is one of the neighbours that so loathes Sirius for all his smoking, black-leather-jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding, but seems to tolerate Remus because he wears cardigans and agrees with everything she says for the sake of an easy life. None of this explains why Remus' Saturday morning is rudely interrupted by Mrs. Whitely nearly beating his front door in and then thrusting what appears to be a short haired Siamese into his arms. The short haired Siamese yowls and digs its claws in. Mrs. Whitely is already bustling back down the garden path.

"Got her for my granddaughter, dear, but the dratted girl is allergic. You take care of her now, dear, you've taken in others."

And then Mrs. Whitely has disappeared back into number twenty three and Remus is left holding the cat. He's only jogged out of his stupor by an interested meow by his ankles and peers down to see both Eleanor and Mildred surveying the outside world in fascination. Remus, who feels Eleanor has been a bad influence, trusts neither of them to make sensible decisions in the world of muggle automobiles, shepherds them both back inside and takes the short haired Siamese with him. Well, he can’t just leave her, now, can he?

Prudence, as she comes to be called, proves to be affable if clumsy and seems to adapt fairly well to three other cats and a bipedal human looking person who probably doesn't smell quite right, though it takes a few swats on the nose from Kathleen for the lesson about the couch to sink in.

 

 

 

Ethel is fifth, and Remus just couldn't say no. She's creamy white, and apparently almost eighteen. Remus gets cornered in the post office by the vet, who immediately starts talking about a family moving away, and their beloved pet who is too old to go with them and desperately needs a good home to while away the rest of her days.

When Ethel arrives in her cat carrier, both the young children cry and Remus feels entirely too awkward about the whole thing. He's left with three pages of instructions about Snowy's likes and dislikes, and feels thoroughly guilty about changing her name. However, Ethel is clearly closer to cream than she is to snow, and Snowy is a thoroughly undignified name for such a dignified cat.

Ethel seems bemused by Prudence, the walking calamity, and to regard Kathleen with a bizarre mixture of respect and disdain. Ethel apparently acknowledges Kathleen’s claim to the couch, but otherwise crowns herself queen of her new kingdom and expects Kathleen to keep her small nose out of it. However, Ethel instantly takes to Mildred and seems to adopt her as her long lost kitten, and Eleanor seems delighted to be taken along for the ride. Resplendent in her new (although thoroughly metaphorical) crown, Ethel takes to sleeping on Remus’ bed during the day and on his pillow at night, and meows furiously whenever left on the wrong side of a door.

 

 

 

Remus' peace, however, is disturbed one Sunday, about seven weeks after Mildred's arrival, by a loud crash in the sitting room, and Sirius' voice shrieking about invasions and pests. When Remus opens the door, he finds Sirius stand at the end of the sofa furthest from Kathleen, wielding a broom and howling, while Eleanor yowls back from her perch on top of the bookshelves.

"Remus! Look! How did it get in? Did you leave a window open?! It’s on the couch!"

Remus blinks slowly, and then says calmly,

"Why, Sirius, I must have done, and how polite, she brought a litter tray with her."

This seems to knock Sirius out of his hysteria, though he still almost takes out one of the lamps with the broom when he turns around to look.

"Well, fuck me, did you let them in, then?"

Remus, who rather feels that 'I accidentally adopted five cats while you were gone because I was lonely and you left me' may be rather too much, thinks carefully before he opens his mouth.

"Yes," he says succinctly, "I did. Now will please get off the sofa and stop waving that broom around. Where did you even get it? Don't tell me you know where we keep the cleaning things, I shan't believe you."

The slight on his character has Sirius hurling the broom aside and leaping off the sofa while affecting a look of one unjustly wounded.

"Moony! You strike me to my core! Did you not miss me?" He cries as he throws his arms around Remus's shoulders, because he is a ridiculous, ridiculous human being. Despite Sirius' melodrama, Remus finds himself smiling as he wraps one arm around Sirius' waist.

"Oh," he murmurs, "maybe a little." And then he sees fit to stop Sirius talking any further by sliding their mouths together and slipping he free hand into Sirius's hair to keep him still. Sirius' lips are slightly chapped from his trip further north, but soft and warm against Remus’ and the sensation of having him here, held close, settles something in his stomach he hadn't even realised wasn't right. Remus can feel himself relaxing more and more the longer they stand there kissing, gently using the fingers to map familiar panes of skin made distant through time apart, and so he's entirely disappointed when Sirius whips his head away when Ethel starts screaming from upstairs. She sounds like a krup that's been stepped on by a dragon, so Remus feels it's understandable.

"What the bollocks is that?" Sirius asks in a sort of calm confusion that implies that his blood has started leaving his brain and he's trying desperately to stop it going back up.

"I may have accidentally shut Ethel in the bedroom again."

Sirius turns to face him again with a look of absolute horror.

"Ethel?"

"Ethel," Remus responds firmly.

 

 

 

Twenty minutes later, the two of them - along with Ethel - have retired to the kitchen and tea. Ethel is staring at Sirius from the top of the fridge and looking disapproving, which Remus understands entirely, and Prudence is on the table batting at the milk. Prudence does not have good table manners. For this reason, Remus has charmed the milk to stay in the jug unless deliberately poured and the jug to never quite manage to fall over, but to sway enthusiastically every time she hits it.

Got to keep her occupied, after all.

Sirius appears to have forgotten about his tea and is watching the whole process with his chin pressed to the table and a mesmerised expression.

"Moony, what is it doing?" He asks, with narrowed eyes.

"She," Remus says archly, "is keeping herself entertained. Though why she has to do it on the table I do not know."

"Moony," Sirius repeats weakly.

 

 

 

Half an hour after that, they return to the sitting room and Sirius enters into a staring match with Kathleen. She twitches her little white ears and surveys him with disdain. Remus sinks into the far end of the sofa with dignity and doesn't mention Kathleen's pointy, pointy claws. Kathleen twitches her little pink nose and Remus casts his mind back to any minor healing charms he learnt at school. Sanere? Sanare? Sanare. As in sana, to heal.

He's still vaguely contemplating whether he should use an anti-bacterial spell before healing the wounds - does the spell heal fully or just close wounds? Can you seal in bacteria that way? - when he realises that it's been a handful of minutes and Sirius has howled in pain yet. When he looks over, Kathleen is lying on her back, paws akimbo, with Sirius' pale fingers buried in the silver cloud of belly fuzz.

"She's so fluffy! And soft!"

 

 

 

Two hours after that, he's finally managed to detach Sirius from Kathleen and been hissed at twice (much to Sirius' amusement) for his trouble. They end up in the upstairs bathroom for teeth-brushing, and Mildred is in the sink. She meows politely when they stop in front of the counter.

"Remus, there is a cat in the sink."

Remus shift uncomfortably.

"Yes, well, Mildred used to be very well behaved but Eleanor has been an appalling influence."

There's a guilty sounding _mrow_ from the bathtub, and a furry black head pokes its way above the lip of the tub. Remus gives Eleanor a severe look and she sinks back down again. As well she should.

"So, let me get this straight. Ethel sleeps on our bed, Kathleen lives on our sofa, Prudence plays with our milk jug, Mildred used to be well behaved, and Eleanor - who is in our bath - is a bad influence. Is there anything else I should know, other than why you are naming our cats as if they're little old ladies?"

Remus sucks on his teeth.

"Don't touch the purple cushion in the armchair, don't leave Prudence unattended around breakables unless they've been spelled, and never, ever trust Eleanor with anything. And I think you'll find they have excellent names."

"Right," Sirius says, in a tone of voice that suggests he's picking his battles, "shall I get Mildred out the sink, then?"

 

 

 

When they're in bed, with the lights off and Ethel rumbling quietly from around their feet, Remus buries his nose in Sirius' shoulder and just breathes. Sirius' arms tighten around him in return and he can feel warm breath ruffle the hair on the side of his head. Remus twists his fingers into Sirius' sleeping shirt and clings.

"I'm sorry," Sirius murmurs, "I'm really sorry."

"I missed you," Remus whispers back.

"Yeah. I missed you too."

"You called them our cats."

"I did. I’m glad you’ve had them here with you."

"Lie to me and say you won't leave me again."

"I won't."

Remus doesn't ask if Sirius is saying no to the leaving or no to the lying, but sinks himself further against Sirius' chest and holds on.

**Author's Note:**

> TA FOR READING <3


End file.
